Can we educate physicians to be more human?

By Brooke Holmes, Special to CNN Editor’s note: Brooke Holmes teaches the history of medicine and Greek literature at Princeton University. She writes with The Op-Ed Project . http://schoolsofthought.blogs.cnn.com/2012/05/14/my-view-can-we-educate-future-physicians-to-be-more-human/?hpt=hp_bn5 "For all the strides we’ve made through technological innovation, medicine is failing at the very human art of treating patients. Doctors are ill-equipped to deal with factors like diet and poverty, which are now responsible for over half the cases of premature disease and death in the United States. Armed with state-of-the art drugs and machines, they don’t always consider whether using these resources will cause more harm than good. In many cases, it no longer makes much sense to call what physicians and patients have a “relationship” at all." "Let’s back up and ask an even more fundamental question: What do we want from our doctors? In a word: communication." "Right now we inhabit a paradox. We tell pre-med students they need to focus on the sciences and then we complain that the doctors they become don’t treat us like people. If we want to improve the quality of health care, we need to be educating future physicians to think qualitatively and quantitatively, humanistically and scientifically."

Yet another overpriced MLM "miracle" product

Just got approached yesterday to buy waaaaay overpriced Cordyceps & ginseng pills (Nuskin's new product) - RM4500 per month's supply. Buy 10, get 2 free to boot - a RM45K investment - I could use this as a down payment for a car or piece of property (OK, outside Klang Valley)! I'm very open-minded & a supporter of traditional Chinese medicine, where it's due, but it's a fact that these MLM companies always overprice their products & the downliners always misrepresent their products. The Taiwanese (the upline of my gullible friend who can ill-afford such products but looking for a business opportunity) used the classic MLM tricks to pull wool over my eyes: 1. 1st thing was misrepresenting the product as being developed by & endorsed by Stanford University. The fine print of their website says "No". They only plan to approach Stanford U to conduct clinical trials on their product. 2. She used a listing of the product in Physician's Desk Reference as a rubber stamp approval by FDA to treat a long list of diseases. Fact #1 - their product is a food supplement & does not require FDA approval to market it Fact #2 - a listing in PDR in no way implies a drug or substance is FDA-approved. It only means it is available for sale in USA. Fact #3 - food supplements are not permitted to make medical claims of treating anything & of course, the Nuskin upline went on & on about miracle cures of impotence, look 15 years younger in 1 month, blah, blah, blah. I think the only thing she didn't cover was cancer & maybe because she knew she was talking to a doctor. 3. Thousands of rich people including movie stars are using the product & giving it "free endorsement" so why should they when they are already so rich? Well, that's why they are so rich - they are top of the heap of the MLM scheme & even M'sian downliners are subservient to S'pore upliners in Nuskin! 4. When she sensed she was losing me, she went on to say she is promoting this product only because she wants to spread the good word about the positive benefits & "Look at me, I'm 50 & look so good" - yeah, with the thickest layer of makeup. I responded & told her to look at me, I'm 44, no makeup on & I don't spend RM4500 every month on health supplements. The meeting ended pretty soon after that. Take home message: If you're already a Nuskin member, think about whether it makes sense to buy overpriced Chinese herbs from an MLM company when you can buy them from your local trustworthy Chinese medicine shop. If you aren't already a Nuskin member, think about whether it makes sense to buy overpriced Chinese herbs so you can make money off your friends for the business opportunity. So many MLM schemes in the past - Bioyoung, Lampberger (their therapeutic "medicinal" fragrance oils from France were eventually found to be sourced from China), Herbalife (Yes, I got sucked in by a relative - the only benefit I got from my experience with this MLM scheme was learning to eat less & more healthily which kickstarted my journey to healthy weight loss)...- have come & gone. They're here to stay, despite what I say (kinda like corruption in Malaysia) but that's my 2 cents worth...